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Robert J. Martinez
ENGL 101A 31207
Professor Howard
4/05/2016
Evil
I believe Adolf Hitler isnt as evil as everyone portrays him as. Many people believe
Hitler to be the embodiment of evil, but before judging anyone for their past actions, you must
first ask yourself; What is evil? Is evil when someone harms another with malicious intent? Is
evil killing innocent people? According to Merriam Websters dictionary the word evil means
morally bad, but then what does it mean to be bad? Is what Hitler did during the Holocaust
morally bad? Merriam Websters dictionary the word bad means failing to reach an acceptable
standard , so yes, to our society what Hitler did was bad, and was completely unacceptable in
the standards of being humane. But to Nazi Germany, Hitler was not considered morally bad,
since he made the people believe that his enemies were less than humans. Standards are
completely opinionated, and what defines evil differs between each person. The question you
should be asking is how should we determine what is and isnt evil. Hitler may have committed
crimes against humanity for the Holocaust, but his biggest crime was his own ignorance that led
to that path. Socrates, a classical Greek philosopher, once said There is only one good,
knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.(BrainyQuote) I believe that Socrates meant that evil is
acting upon ignorance, while good is acting upon knowledge. For humanity to become less evil
we must try to base our actions on our knowledge, so that we wont repeat crimes of Hitler and
others, whose actions are based on ignorance.
Many things that we view as morally bad are usually linked with ignorance, because
actions done by the ignorant always seem irrational. For example, hate crimes are considered

evil, because these attacks are based off prejudice, rather than facts or evidence. A more
primitive person would rely
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on their emotions and feelings to do actions, rather than logical reasoning and knowledge. They
act irrationally, because they are deprived of the knowledge to calmly think things through. For
instance, how Isis (Islamic State of Iran and Syria) are killing people in order to remove nonMuslims, since they view people who arent Muslim as sub-human, .To prevent yourself from
irrational actions you should only execute your action when you have knowledge of the
consequences and effects that action may have.
There are many factors to why humans label others as morally bad, although labeling
others as morally bad is evil in itself. Believing someone is morally bad based on their
civilizations, religions, cultures, and ideologies, is in itself evil, because youre ignorant to their
beliefs. For example, forcing others to assimilate to your culture, because you believe other
peoples cultures are lower than your own, as the British empire did during the exploration era.

evil, as both the buyers and sellers are equally guilty of the wrongdoings of slavery.
Understanding the full story before passing judgement is essential for actions to be less ignorant.
Propaganda has a huge effect on spreading evil, since it heavily influences people to
believe what is, and isnt morally bad, even if it isnt completely true.The definition of
propaganda according to Merriam Websters dictionary means ideas or statements that are
often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a
government, ecct.. As Socrates states False words are not only evil in themselves, but they
infect the soul with evil.(Diogenes Laertius), I believe he is explaining spreading lies are a
worse evil, because its planting the seed of evil, ignorance, into people.Propaganda and lies are

strong enough to make people kill one another, or even worse. The Holocaust was an event that
happened, because of propaganda and hate. I believe the Nazis, and any kind of racist to be evil,
because they had refused to see the perspectives of their victims that they attack. Their evil was
the ignorant racist attitude they held towards their victims. Nazis and racist were not the stem of
this evil, the ones responsible for this ignorance is propaganda, lies and false teachings of hatred,
which is much worse than regular evil, since it is promoting ignorance. If the people of Germany
werent ignorant of the situation and how the Jews were, the Holocaust would have been less
likely to happen.
Hitler's actions were evil, because he had spread ignorance through his people, which in
turn created one of the most horrendous events in history due to the peoples ignorance. Acts of
ignorance are evil, because irrational actions are done due to their lack of knowledge; The
possibilities of problems and conflicts arises due to those irrational decisions. The actions
opposite to evil, ignorance, which is good, knowledge, is what we should strive to do, because it
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uses things you have knowledge on to accomplish in a rational, above standard, manner.
Although good cannot exist without evil, we must first try to analyze situations before calling to
action, so we have
knowledge to act upon. Evil is a natural human nature,since we all start off with almost no
knowledge. As we grow, we should try to ascend from our ignorance by enhancing our
knowledge, so that our actions are based less off our own ignorance.

Works Cited
"evil." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.
Web. 5 April 2016
"good." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.
Web. 5 April 2016
"bad." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.
Web. 5 April 2016
Socrates, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Greek philosopher in Athens (469 BC - 399 BC)
"Socrates." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2016. Web 4 April

2016.http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/socrates118207.html
Scaruffi, Piero. "The Origins of the Slave Trade." Web. 08 Apr. 2016.
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/slavetra.html

Youve clarified some points and included some examples. Thats the right idea, but you needed
more development of those ideas. See my notes.
DEFINITION RUBRIC
Format/Assignment: Conforms to essay format & assignment requirements (prompt, page
length)
10
/10

Introduction: introduces the term, grabs readers attention, provides necessary background
information and thesis
10/10

Thesis statement that includes your concrete definition of the word and the importance or
significance of the term
9
/10

Distinguishing characteristics: Series of fully supported distinguishing characteristics that make

your word clear, concrete and precise 14/20

Use of detailed and descriptive writing to develop distinguishing characteristics 6 /10

Effective organization around a central idea or theme; multiple body paragraphs that are
distinct, focused and unified 7 /10

Conclusion that draws the essay to a satisfying close 9 /10

Style: Smooth transitions between paragraphs, appropriate tone, coherence, control of

grammar, spelling & punctuation 7/10

One source properly documented in MLA format 8/10

TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS: 100

YOUR POINTS: 80
LETTER GRADE: B